This booklet contains a report of living conditions in Scranton, Pennsylvania, conducted by the Department of Surveys and Exhibits of the Russell Sage Foundation and published by the Century Club of Scranton. It covers the following topics: community assets, education, public health and sanitation, civic improvement, betterment agencies, recreation, taxation and public finance, work conditions and relations, and delinquency.

This booklet reprints an article from The Public Health Journal (Toronto, Canada) of October 1913. It discusses the relationship between social surveys and the work of public health authorities.

FRANZ SCHNEIDER, JR. was sanitarian at the Department of Surveys and Exhibits of the Russell Sage Foundation.

A form listing people and places—including churches, employers, medical agencies, and public officials—that social agencies might have visited with columns for noting the number of visits to each. An explanation following the list notes that agencies using the largest number of outside sources of information will be seen as having made the best investigation into the cases they are treating.

This illustrated booklet focuses on the causes of poverty and ways to alleviate it. It asks such questions as which is better: helping the poor in their poverty or helping the poor out of their poverty and is it money alone that the poor need?

This booklet reports on a study of children’s handwriting conducted by the Russell Sage foundation and presents the scale that the study produced. It discusses how the handwriting samples were obtained as well as how they were read and scored.

LEONARD P. AYRES was director of the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation.

This booklet presents the result of a study of play for children in institutions presented in a series of five conferences at the invitation of the State Board of Charities of New York. It discusses the function and value of play as well as requisites for play and the adaptation of play for various age groups.

ROBERT K. ATKINSON was a researcher who studied children’s institutions in the United States.

This article from The Psychological Clinic, reprinted as an RSF booklet the same year, attempts to examine possible relations between physical disability and school progress in children.

LEONARD P. AYRES was director of the Division of Education at the Russell Sage Foundation.

This booklet provides a description of the activities and publications of the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation. It includes a discussion of the field and method of work as well as a list of pamphlets, books, and slides. 

LEONARD P. AYRES was director at the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation.

This booklet presents a scale for measuring the quality of adults’ handwriting following a request by the Municipal Civil Service Commission. It includes an explanation for how the scale was developed.

LEONARD P. AYRES was director of the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation.

"This highly accessible and engaging book is rich with sociological insight. While recognizing the inevitable sorting role of schools, the authors offer a creative road map towards a more equitable future in education—and in life."
—ADAM GAMORAN, president, William T. Grant Foundation

"We all know that schools sort kids into good and bad jobs. This elegant little book reminds us that schools are also relentless categorizers inside their gates: the free-lunch kids learn they’re poor, the honors kids learn they’re special, and the ‘first years’ learn they’re far from first. Schooled and Sorted makes a brilliant case for regaining control over the categories that define our children’s lives."
—DAVID B. GRUSKY, Edward Ames Edmond Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and director, Center on Poverty and Inequality, Stanford University

"Schooled and Sorted makes a convincing case that it takes more than just skill-building curricula and effective teachers for a school to provide its students with ladders to the middle class. When schools also make well-intentioned efforts to boost achievement and motivate students by grouping or categorizing them, the results can be counterproductive. This book explains why and what can be done about them."
—GREG J. DUNCAN, distinguished professor, School of Education and Departments of Economics (by courtesy) and Psychology and Social Behavior (by courtesy), University of California at Irvine

We tend to view education primarily as a way to teach students skills and knowledge that they will draw upon as they move into their adult lives. However, schools do more than educate students – they also place students into categories, such as kindergartner, English language learner, or honor roll student. In Schooled and Sorted, Thurston Domina, Andrew M. Penner, and Emily K. Penner, explore processes of educational categorization in order to explain the complex relationship between education and social inequality – and to identify strategies that can help build more just educational systems. 

Some educational categories have broadly egalitarian consequences. Indeed, Domina, Penner, and Penner argue that when societies enroll young people in school, making them students, they mark them as individuals who are worthy of rights. But other educational categories reinforce powerful social categories – including race, gender, and class – and ultimately reproduce social and economic inequality in society. Elite colleges, tracked high schools, and elementary school gifted programs provide not only different educational experiences, but also create merit and inequality by sorting students into categories that are defined by the students who are excluded.

Schooled & Sorted highlights that many of the decisions that define educational categories occur in school-based committee meetings and other relatively local settings. The local nature of these decisions provides many opportunities to define educational categories differently, and for school communities to bring about change. 

Schooled & Sorted is an illuminating investigation into the ways sorting within schools translates into inequality in the larger world. While some educational categorization may be unavoidable, the authors suggest ways to build a more equitable system – and thus a more equitable society.

THURSTON DOMINA is Robert Wendell Eaves Sr. Distinguished Professor in Educational Leadership, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
ANDREW M. PENNER is a professor of sociology, University of California, Irvine
EMILY K. PENNER is associate professor of education, University of California, Irvine